Appropriate grades or age groups:
pre-school to middle school

Estimated time to complete project or implement technique:
15 minutes to 1 hour or more

Materials needed (if applicable):
Water, ice, varying containers, saucepans and a frying pan, and if desired, a carbonated and/or a sweetened liquid. Glass jars, foil, food coloring are other options.

Project instructions or description of technique:
This is an idea to start with from about age 4, then expand on as time passes. First, just have your child help you fill an ice tray, and one or more different sized containers of water to freeze. See how long it takes for the different amounts to freeze.

Next, show your child how water boils, by putting water in different sized pans and heating them. Note how the water in a shallower pan will boil faster. Watch the steam rise (carefully!) and talk about where the water is going. Don't get too technical at first.

Color water with food coloring, if you like, to make the comparisons easier. Use the water when you're finished for plants or refreeze it or make tea out of it, rather than pouring it out.

Also, put some ice and water in a glass and set it in a warm spot so kids can see the condensation forming on the outside of the glass. Where is this water coming from? Where will it go?

For the next age level, the same activities are appropriate. You can expand on the study by heating ice in one pan and warm water in another and a sweetened and/or carbonated beverage in others. Make a chart and write the times it took each to boil and freeze, and talk about why they might be different, before and after.

Discuss how water turns to vapor, how molecules collect to form clouds, and how the water never actually stops existing; it only changes form. This discussion can be used for various spiritual ideas, as well, if you are inclined and your child is attentive!

Allow middle schoolers to freeze equal amounts of different types of liquid, noting how long it took each to freeze, then to melt, then to boil. They can learn the components of each to determine what caused the differences.

Be sure to have some of the ice sitting in different types of containers as it melts, and put some in water and some in a carbonated liquid, to note how they will melt at different rates. Wrap a piece in foil and leave a piece out in the open and predict what the difference will be.

All this can be noted in a journal or on a wall chart.

Elementary and Middle School kids can collect water samples from different places, like a pond or river, etc., in a jar, and watch the sediment settle. If they get their sample from the floor of a natural body of water, they may find that several layers are formed, and can work to determine what each layer may contain.

Water testing kits are available fairly inexpensively, to test pH, ammonia and nitrate levels. These can be found at fish stores or through a water supplier. Comparisons can be done with tap water, bottled drinking water and river, lake and ocean water. You could carefully add chlorine and/or baking soda a little at a time and retest, note the differences and why they occur.

Other suggestions or comments:
Naturally, this is a good time to discuss water conservation, so make sure you don't waste what you use!